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Psychology Likert: Ipsative Test/ Assessment

Ipsative assessment compares a learner's performance to their previous performance, rather than to external standards or other learners. It emphasizes personal progress over grades. Benefits include increased motivation for learners and a focus on improvement areas. Drawbacks include the need for access to past assessment records and difficulty linking assessments across different modules. The document discusses how ipsative assessment was used on a masters program to provide feedback on addressing previous comments and next steps for learning. Ipsative assessment is contrasted with criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessment.

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Urfa Syed
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315 views3 pages

Psychology Likert: Ipsative Test/ Assessment

Ipsative assessment compares a learner's performance to their previous performance, rather than to external standards or other learners. It emphasizes personal progress over grades. Benefits include increased motivation for learners and a focus on improvement areas. Drawbacks include the need for access to past assessment records and difficulty linking assessments across different modules. The document discusses how ipsative assessment was used on a masters program to provide feedback on addressing previous comments and next steps for learning. Ipsative assessment is contrasted with criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessment.

Uploaded by

Urfa Syed
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Ipsative Test/ Assessment

According to John (2003), Ipsative means "of the self" is a descriptor used
in psychology to indicate a specific type of measure in which respondents compare two or more
desirable options and pick the one that is most preferred (sometimes called a "forced choice" scale).
This is contrasted with measures that use Likert-type scales, in which respondents choose the score
(e.g. 1 to 5) which best represents the degree to which they agree with a given statement "Ipsative
Comparisons" are also sometimes used in standardized testing to compare significant differences
in subtest scores.
Ipsative assessment is an assessment based on a learner’s previous work rather than based
on performance against external criteria and standards. Learners work towards a personal best
rather than always competing against other students. When threshold standards must be met for an
award, ipsative feedback could be combined with traditional grades.

Benefits of Ipsative Assessment for learners

 Standards and criteria referenced assessment can be demotivating for learners who do not
achieve high grades, while ipsative assessment emphasizes the progress learners are making and
is more motivating.
 Ipsative feedback helps learners to develop by highlighting where there is more work to
do. Ipsative feedback can also help high performing students to achieve even more.
 Ipsative assessment helps learners self-assess and become more self-reliant.

Benefits of such an approach for teachers

 Providing ipsative feedback helps focus on what the learner needs to do next rather than
dwelling on the inadequacies of current performance.
 Some students are more likely to act on ipsative feedback than highly critical feedback.
 A focus on learner progress will distinguish between poorly performing students who are
progressing, albeit slowly, and those who are not progressing and who are therefore unsuitable for
the course.

Disadvantages of Ipsative Assessment

The biggest problem is that assessors need to have access to records of a learner’s past assessments
to make comparisons and these are not always available, although electronic records can help. It
also means that assessments of different modules in a modular scheme may need to be linked and
this may be difficult if the modules have very different learning outcomes. Finally, ipsative
assessment requires a different way of thinking about assessment and this may take time for
teachers and students to get used to.

Learners on a Masters in Leadership programme completed an assignment submission


form which asked them to list previous feedback points and how they had addressed this feedback
in their current assignment. Tutors then provided further feedback on how well the previous
feedback had been addressed and the progress the learner was making as well as suggesting the
next steps for the learner.

Ipsative assessment can be contrasted with criterion-referenced assessment and norm-


referenced assessment. Ipsative assessment is used in everyday life, and features heavily in
physical education and also in computer games. Encouraging pupils to beat their previous scores
can take peer pressure out of situations and eliminates the competitive element associated with
norm-based referencing. It can be particularly useful for children with learning disabilities and can
improve motivation. In education it is an assessment against the student’s own previous standards.
It can measure how well a particular task has been undertaken against the student’s average
attainment, against their best work, or against their most recent piece of work. Ipsative assessment
tends to correlate with effort, to promote effort-based attributions of success, and to enhance
motivation to learn.
Ipsative assessment is the process of comparing a student’s performance against his/her
previous performance. Unlike criterion-based and norm-based assessments that rely on comparing
the student to external criteria or to his peers, ipsative assessments compares the students’
performance to their own previous performance. It is applied mostly in physical education and
computer games, where it can take peer pressure and the competitive element out of situation.
Ipsative assessment is more widely used in early education where there is more emphasis on the
learners’ personal progression than in higher education where there is more stress on the students’
grades. However, one can argue that measuring students personal progress is as important as
measuring their competencies and skill development.

John Kaleeman (2014) argues that A norm-referenced test compares a test-taker against his or her
peers. For example, you might compare my results with those of my Question mark colleagues. (If
you did, then seeing how energetic many are in the gym, I suspect my performance would not
compare well!)
 A criterion-referenced test measures a test-taker against external criteria. For example, it might
be that people of a certain age should be expected to reach a certain distance in a certain time
on an exercise bike.
A third type is sometimes called ipsative assessment.

 An ipsative assessment in an education/learning context compares a test-taker’s results against


his or her previous results. This is how I measure myself at the gym – I am pleased that I am
doing better than I have before. I’m not worried if this meets some external criteria or if I’m
better or worse than other people.
It’s very common to use criterion-referenced tests as computerized assessments because they help
us measure competence. If you want to be sure that your employees know the rules, if you want to
validate a pilot to fly a plane, or if you want to check that someone has understood training, a
criterion-referenced test is usually the way to go.

Adams (2001) argues that advantage of ipsative assessment is that it measures progress and
development – a test-taker can see if he or she is improving and whether or not he/she is taking
advantage of feedback from previous assessments. Using ipsative assessment can help all test-
takers improve: A weaker performer will be encouraged by seeing performance improvements
over earlier attempts, and a stronger performer can be challenged to do better. This can deal with
the risks of the weaker performer becoming de-motivated from a poor test result and the strong
performer complacent from a good one. Ipsative assessment can be used for objective measures
(e.g. did I get a better score?) and also for more subjective measures (e.g. am I more confident
about something?).

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